An audit of the Consumer Electronics Association’s (CEA) 2010 conference (CES) indicates that 126,641 industry professionals attended the tradeshow’s four-day run in Las Vegas, Jan. 7-10, a 12 percent increase over the previous year.
Veris Consulting LLC conducted the independent audit the association says “confirms CES’ status as the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow and North America’s largest annual tradeshow of any kind.”
Certified by the Exhibition and Event Industry Audit Commission, Veris also calculated the exhibit floor square footage using only exhibit space actually sold, not hallways or bartered space. In all, there were 2,500 exhibitors, including a record 330 first-time exhibitors, covering 1.4 million net square feet of exhibit space.
According to the Veris audit, there were 24,000 international attendees from 36 countries, 45 percent of all attendees were senior level executives, 20 percent were presidents, CEOs and/or business owners and one third were final decision makers when it comes to new product purchases and partnerships within their organizations.
“The CES audit provides absolute verification of exhibition records, including direct on-site observation, examination of registration systems and testing of attendee records,” stated a CEA press release. “Post-show analysis included direct confirmation sampling, reconciliation of attendance lists, elimination of duplicate names and verification of demographic data with the source of documentation.”
